Cupid Explanation for Cupid to Explain to Folks or
by Atomdancerrr
Summary: This will help folks who want to explain the show, Cupid to others or who wants to know more about it themselves. This counts as a story even if it is mostly narrative and has almost no dialog .


Consider any fan fiction story an advertisement for the original show, movie or book. The 1998 Cupid show can be watched for the Most part at Youtube. ABC still has a few episodes of the 2009 show and Itunes sells them. They are well worth it.

I do not own Cupid or Psyche or any of the ancient Greek little g gods, but ABC doesn't either. The ancient Greeks do. They are looking down from the Heaven Science will build and because of curved space/time already exists, laughing in glee that we are still writing about characters they invented thousands of years ago! May Star Trek and Doctor Who and Quantum Leap last as long and do as well!

This will help folks who want to explain the show to others. This counts as a story even if it is mostly narrative and almost no dialog). You can use this to know more about the show or explain it to your friends.

(This is probably the first TV show ever ghost written by the Ancient Greeks and Cupid is portrayed exactly as he was portrayed by them! That which makes for a delicious situation; putting an extremely ancient soul in modern times! And it brings up a wonderful question. What will Superman and Captain Kirk be doing thousands of years from now? Because they WILL be around. We won't lose our taste for colorful characters and fascinating scenarios!

Explanation for Cupid To Explain it to Folks

By

8-) Elizabeth Hensley

The sorrowful higher powers look down upon the modern Earth and what they see makes them furious gods! No more is it love unto death among the Mortals. Instead its casual hookups and illegitimate babes and abortions and venereal diseases and most intolerable of all it is Humans going home alone at night after the partying and the sexing is over to sleep and to stare at their ceilings alone, empty and hopeless. Their souls are dying!

The gods look around amongst themselves to find the culprit and they don't have to look far!

Behold the puckish Cupid with his silly bow, and arrogant callousness, flitting about shooting Mortals wily-nily causing irresponsible match-ups and impossible pairings. He thinks its funny! His divine Mommy, Venus and Mars and Mercury (one of whom is Cupid's father but they don't know which), realize it's their own fault. When one's species is potentially immortal few replacements are necessary. He was one of the few babies born in the last few thousand years and he's been spoiled rotten! It is time for him to grow up and relearn what he is supposed to be doing. He needs to go to Earth to be forced to live among the Mortals he was hurting. They look around to find a place to cast him down.

Meanwhile in the Mortal realms we have the Human equivalent of Cupid. Behold Professor R T Hale. He is a college Professor who plays the field amongst his lovely lady Students and loves his chase ass life one unrepentant lady-killer who feels not one shred of remorse for the dozens of hearts he has broken. But then a sad miracle occurs. He falls in love, REALLY in love and in his heart he repents and vows to finally be completed by the woman who will become his salvation. He comes to her house with a ring on his pocket to find she has committed suicide. One of the many Students whose hearts he had crassly played with had taken it upon her self to warn his newest "play toy." She could not have known he was finally serious this time. Our Sleeping Beauty took pills so she could sleep and sleep to make the pain go away and no matter how many times our remorseful Prince Charming kisses and kisses her she will never wake up ever again.

The Professor is investigated for misconduct, stripped of his professorship and kicked out of HIS Olympus. He too considers suicide but he finds another way to destroy himself, or to redeem himself if the stained glass window work of art, sacred Lunatic he creates or calls down can manage not to be shattered by the mental health profession long enough to complete their mutual redemption.

A stained glass window, carefully pieced together from what was painfully shattered does not reveal clearly what is behind it as a clear window would. But it is beautiful, lets colorful light into the world, shows a different truth and _does _protect the contents from the elements just as much as a normal clear glass window would.

Professor Hale was a Professor of classical literature: no Christian he! He prays, as any Human would, but not to Christ or to the Father.

He prays to Zeus!

And Zeus grants his prayer!

But not in the way gentle Jesus would. What comes to indwell Professor Hale takes completely over!

(Always be careful what you wish for you might get it).

Suddenly R T Hale has a whopping case of multiple personality disorder with the secondary persona completely and irrevocably in control. R T Hale is now firmly convinced he is Cupid the god of love, sent to Earth for punishment and to relearn his craft, required to unite in true love one hundred couples. This is a small penance for all the harm he has been doing for the last few hundred years/dozen years.

But Cupid is a god without followers and without believers, cast down in the mean streets of New York (or Chicago in the original show), like any unwanted and unneutered stray. Cupid is a baby toddling around in Adult Human form. Baby Jesus was sent by a wise and loving Father to a warm and loving Human family for nurturing and teaching in the ways of how to be Human. But Cupid's family-pantheon of little g, divine dysfunctionals haven't that much sense. Cupid has…..no one.

Without his bow and without one shred of magic and very little grasp of Human nature or the incredible immensity of the task set before him he sets about with optimism and ignorance to complete his mission (two unstoppable forces as Mark Twain would put it). Of course soon he comes to the attention of the police and finds himself in a nice cushy, secure mental health facility. He has a mission to complete and now he is a god interrupted. He is not happy! But he does the best he can to start hooking up the Orderlies with the Nurses and starts winning over the staff.

Now here comes the other member in this dramedy: Cupid's Psyche, one Dr. Claire McCrea (Dr Claire Allen in the original show). She is a relationship expert whose mission is to help couples learn to stay together after the two to six years of passion have played out. She knows every technique in the book for how to maintain a long term, healthy relationship. To her the way to start a relationship is to have a checklist of desirable traits in hand and every jot and tittle checked before even considering a possible pairing.

She gets a call.

"You have to take on this Patient! He's your next book!"

And so our crazy, passionate Cupid meets his warm but Spock-like Psyche-iatrist.

Our cheerful, charming Lunatic insists he's Cupid, absolutely won't back down about that, but he wants OUT of the psyche ward! He will do anything to complete his mission, even lie though it disgusts him. Slowly his delusions "fade" or so his Psychiatrist thinks. To please the sanity board he picks a name out of thin air, (or so he thinks), using the words on the inspirational saying curved on a fresco on the wall behind the examining Doctors.

Suddenly he's the perfectly sane but a little bewildered Trevor Pierce (or Hale in the original show)

They let him go with the stipulation that Dr Claire keeps an eye on him and help him adjust to living a normal life again. The requirements are he gets a job and place to stay. She's happy. She's cured him. She meets him outside the hospital buying a pretzel (or a hotdog depending on which show). She gives him her card for a singles group she runs. He's delighted. No Schizophrenic he! (Metaphors come easy) "Perfect. Fish in a barrel."

So to her horror it dawns on her he's been faking his newfound normalcy! ('pulling a Cupid' shall we call it? The opposite of pulling a Howling Mad Murdock)?

He proclaims, "I have a mission to complete and I couldn't do it in there!"

But what is she going to do? The hospital would want to recommit him and put him on high doses of antipsychotic drugs designed for Schizophrenics, which Trevor clearly isn't!

So as his bemused Therapist watches, holding her breath that he doesn't do something to cause harm to another, and cause her to lose her license, off our divine Lunatic cheerfully goes into the Twenty-First Century: one brave but naïve little g god of the Ancients trying to adapt to computers, cell phones, speed dating and casual hookups.

But he's intelligent. Like the obedient Mental Patient he is he goes to the singles group as required then follows them across the street to a bar (Taggerty's in the first show, Tres Equis in the second show). They need a Bar keep, (over packed in the first show, too lacking in customers to pay much but can throw in a room to live in, in the second show). Trevor doesn't know a thing about bar tending but he is very intelligent and can follow a recipe book and they are desperate. That recipe book and a little patience from his Boss does more to gain his freedom than anything the mental health care system did for him in 3 months. Right before his Therapist's disbelieving eyes her "tragically delusional" Patient has a job and a place to stay, fulfilling the requirements of staying wild and free despite his unstoppable conviction that he is Cupid the god of love, Eros incarnate, Mucho Amore!

And a bar makes a perfect front for a Cupid trying to pair off singles, except he knows absolutely nothing about how to do that, bowless. Above his bed he sets up a string of pool game counter beads. To his bewildered Roommate (or Landlord/Boss in the second show), he matter of factly explains that he is Cupid the god of love. And that his mission is to unite one hundred couples in true love so he can go home to Olympus and it is the GODS who decide what is true love! Even getting married doesn't necessarily count because it has to last for all eternity. The pool markers will help him keep track of how far along he is in completing his task. _Well! This Employer certainly has a problem! Talk about hiring the handicapped! _

But in this age of little work ethics and every complaint in the book for not doing ones work or even showing up you don't fire a hard working, competent Employee just because he has a tiny mental quirk like thinking he's the god of love! What could be more harmless?

Cupid actually succeeds his first full day free in uniting one of his couples and watches in joy as one bead slides over to the right seemingly by itself being pushed by his far away divine family. But as Cupid stares all alone at all the beads still not moved, it slowly dawns on him he is in the EXACT same situation many of his victims were. No one is truly there for him!

Cupid has a place to stay and a job. He even has a mission. But as William Shatner would put it, he has no life. But he has had 90 days of training on how to be a good Mental Patient. He picks up the phone and calls his Shrink. "I could stand living on Earth, the cold and the being yelled at and the pain and the despair if I could just find some decent Italian food!

For once Claire has something more than psychobabble to offer him. "I know a place…"

"Where is it? Come meet me there. I'll buy."

"Now Trevor you know the rules. Doctor. Patient."

"You have to supervise me anyway and I've researched. You really are the best therapist around and I really can use some counseling!"

"Doubting your identity?"

NO but you can help me beat this thing with a lot of work and time and elbow grease. Would you help me with my… homesickness?"

Soon Claire realizes her crazy Patient is doing a great thing. The premise that he is Cupid HAS to be wrong but his conclusion is beyond argument! It is GOOD thing to be a Matchmaker and Trevor seems to have a natural instinct for it. His viewpoint: "Of course I do. I've been doing it for 3 thousand years!" But it slowly dawns on Cupid that Claire is also correct. The couples he unites keep breaking up and need the techniques she teaches and a checklist isn't such a bad idea after all. He has to learn from her too. But the Human heart is unfathomable beyond comprehension by either Science or Faith. They make more mistakes than they have successes, but they keep muddling on.

Psychiatrist and Lunatic, Thinker and Feeler, Psyche and Cupid, Reason and Feelings, Science and Faith work together to make our throw away world a better place for true, undying love!


End file.
